Not content with the humiliating—and apparently “shocking” if Fox News is your sole source of intellectual nourishment—shellacking they got just last week, some impotent, rage-filled rightwing blowhards have a new “thing” to support to stick it to that Kenyan Muslim socialist in the White House and his commie plot to give poor people healthcare.

And wouldn’t you know it, it involves eating shitty, artery-clogging fast food (again).

Welcome to America!

A Facebook group calling itself “Rebooting America” is touting an event on the social network, planned for this Friday, Nov. 16, to protest the Affordable Care Act (ACA) due to centi-millionaire, “Papa John” Schnatter, founder and CEO of Papa John’s Pizza—and a big Mitt Romney donor and fund raiser—ostentatiously whining that he’ll be jacking up the price of his lousy product and passing that cost off on to his customers because Obamacare.

Hooray? I guess some people just get off on seeing their fellow man suffer, and it causes them to work up an appetite for disgusting pizza that tastes like cardboard topped with Alpo and burned Velveeta, but with Friday’s call for a “National Papa John’s Appreciation Day,” I don’t think the reichwing knuckleheads really thought this one all the way through, as Daily Kos Labor reporter Laura Clawson writes:

You know who I don’t take seriously when they say they really want everyone to have health insurance and it’s a shame Obamacare isn’t the right way to insure more people? People who run businesses where only a third of workers are insured. Like Darden Restaurants (the parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among others), which also said that Obamacare was what would be causing it to cut down on the 25 percent of its workers that got the 30 hours a week qualifying them for health insurance, Papa John’s is one of the 50 largest low-wage employers, and it’s a highly profitable one. So, no, “I’m so concerned that I might have to cut hours for some of the one in three employees I currently insure even though my 2011 revenues were $1.22 billion” is not the thing that makes me, personally, think “gosh, Obamacare really is putting intolerable burdens on businesses that want to take care of their workers but just might not be able to afford it.”

But I’m not the target for this kind of talk. Will Republicans mobilize in Schnatter’s defense? Failed Delaware Senate candidate and non-witch Christine O’Donnell wants to bring back that Chick-fil-A magic.
&nbsp:

Papa Johns CEO’s getting heat for saying Obamacare costs will force layoffs. Papa Johns support day this Friday #TCOT

— Christine O’Donnell (@ChristineOD) November 12, 2012

 
People who think low-wage, no-health-care jobs are a great thing should definitely go to Papa John’s on Friday to make the political point that the company would be right to cut workers’ hours. What’s more, everyone who heeds O’Donnell’s call should be sure the workers know why they’re ordering this pizza on this day. Alternatively, they could just leave a “please spit on this pizza repeatedly” note when ordering each one.

Admittedly, this was the first thought that came to my mind, too (I guess it’s a good thing I don’t work at Papa John’s). The second was fantasizing about spitting in John Schnatter’s face…

The question is, how will Schnatter’s dickish politicization of raising his prices impact his shareholders and the Papa John’s franchise holders around the country? I don’t think this is another Chick-fil-A protest that will end up as a net positive, or neutral event for Papa John’s (keep in mind that Chick-fil-A’s food actually tastes good, whereas Papa John’s pizza tastes, in the memorable words of Stephen Colbert, like the ‘ass of a raccoon that drowned in your birdbath’).

When the Chick-fil-A support day occurred, there was at least a threadbare cover of “traditional Christian values” and all that implies, whereas this is just a mega-rich JERK shooting his mouth off. Centi-millionaire Schnattar’s peevish pronouncements about raising his prices make him look poorly, the way Donald Trump’s deranged ass clown rantings make him look. And like Trump, Schnatter is not a sympathetic character, he’s just a fucking super-rich asshole.

If you’re so stupid that you think purchasing some low-grade junk-food to show your feeble support of some CHEAP Republican bastard with over a hundred million dollars in the bank who doesn’t want the people who work for him to have health insurance is a good idea, hey, by all means order some Papa John’s Pizza this Friday, just cross yer fingers that no one spits on your pie, dipshit!

Bon appetite!
 

 
David Frum. During the Bush administration, I used to really hate him, but now, kinda like how Bruce Springsteen has a grudging respect for NJ Governor Chris Christie, I think he’s pretty good (for a Republican). Pretty astute. Frum says really smart things.

Things the GOP ought to listen to.

David Frum’s instantly published new e-book, Why Romney Lost grabs the lapels of shell-shocked Republicans and attempts to talk some sense into them.

His article in The Daily Beast today, “How the GOP Got Stuck in the Past,” is a must read, an absolute must-read:

The ratification of the Obama agenda will understandably enrage and depress conservatives. Yet if there is any lesson conservatives ought to have learned from the past four years, it is the danger of succumbing to angry emotion. We’ve had four years of self-defeating rage. Now it’s time for cool.

Those who would urge the GOP to double down on ideology post-2012 should ask themselves: would Republicans have done better if we had promised a bigger tax cut for the rich and proposed to push more people off food stamps and Medi­caid? Would we have done better if we had promised to do more to ban abortion and stop same-sex marriage? If we had committed ourselves to fight more wars? To put the country on the gold standard? Almost half of those surveyed on voting day said they wanted to see taxes raised on Americans earning more than $250,000. Exit polls do tend to oversample Democrats, but the tax result is consistent with other polling that has found that even Republicans would prefer to raise taxes on the rich than see cuts in Medicare.

Some combative conservatives may wish that Mitt Romney had talked more about the various plots and conspiracies they believed Obama to have launched upon the land: Fast & Furious, ACORN, Pigford, U.N. bike lanes, Obama’s imagined plan to abolish the suburbs. But while this kind of angry talk may gain eyeballs on Hannity, it’s not the stuff that swings undecided voters in Colorado and ­Virginia—­especially not the women voters who formed 53 percent of the electorate on Tuesday; or the moderates, men and women, who formed 41 percent of it; or the nonreligiously observant, who formed three quarters of it. Only 34 percent of the vote Tuesday was made up of white men. The share of the vote that was made up of older, conservative white men must have been much smaller still. Fox Nation never was more than a very tiny slice of the American nation, and it was only sad self-delusion that ever led anyone to think otherwise.

Interesting to note how much agreement David Frum and Rachel Maddow would find themselves in, post election, isn’t it? I’d love to see Frum as a guest on her show and being interviewed by Bill Moyers, too.

How the GOP Got Stuck in the Past (The Daily Beast)

Do yourself a favor and watch this video clip at least until the end of Frum’s first answer to the big question: “Why did Mitt Romney lose?” He also gets a very good point in at around the 11 minute mark about how Republican voters were exploited and fleeced for their donations with apocalyptic, “death of America” rhetoric. Fellow Republican Joe Scarborough strongly agrees with him.
 

 
From Salon:

The head of a charity in Ohio is not pleased with Paul Ryan’s photo op at a soup kitchen in Ohio, saying that the Romney campaign “ramrodded their way” into their facility unannounced.

The president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, Brian J. Antag, told the Washington Post: “We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations. It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”

He added:  “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall.”

The Post reports that Ryan made the unscheduled stop after an event at Youngstown State University, and was there for about 15 minutes. But though the pictures taken shows Ryan apparently doing dishes, the food had already been served and everything had already been cleaned before he got there.

“Had they asked for permission, it wouldn’t have been granted. … But I certainly wouldn’t have let him wash clean pans and then take a picture,” Antag said.

I’ve always hated Paul Ryan’s guts and the more I know about the sonofabitch the more I hate him. What an ugly little man. He’s the perfect running mate for Shit Romney.
 

 
The term “Libertarian” has long been synonymous with “Asshole” in my estimation, and I think it’s safe to say that Jacobin magazine editor Connor Kilpatrick probably feels the same way.

Today is the centenary anniversary of the birth of Libertarian icon, economist Milton Friedlman, so what better day for the publication of the most viciously hilarious takedpown of the Libertarian position that I think I’ve ever read?

Excerpted from the much longer “It’s Hip! It’s Cool! It’s Libertarianism!” which was cross-posted today at both Naked Capitalism and The Exiled:

Libertarianism isn’t some cutting-edge political philosophy that somehow transcends the traditional “left to right” spectrum. It’s a radical, hard-right economic doctrine promoted by wealthy people who always end up backing Republican candidates, no matter how often they talk about civil liberties, ending the wars and legalizing pot. Funny how that works.

It’s the “third way” for a society in which turning against capitalism or even taking your foot off the pedal is not an option. Thanks to our shitty constitution and the most violent labor history in the West, we never even got a social-democratic party like the rest of the developed world.

So what do we get? The libertarian line: “No, no: the problem isn’t that we’re too capitalist. It’s that we’re not capitalist enough!”

Genius.

At a time in which our society has never been more interdependent in every possible way, libertarians think they’re John fucking Wayne looking out over his ranch with an Apache scalp in his belt, or John fucking Galt doing…whatever it is he does. (Collect vintage desk toys from the Sharper Image?)

Their whole ideology is like a big game of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s all make-believe, except for the chain-mail–they brought that from home. Elves, dwarves and fair maidens for capital. Even with the supposedly “good ones”—anti-war libertarians—we’re still talking about people who think Medicare’s going to lead to Stalinism.

So my advice is to call them out.

Ask them what their beef really is with the welfare state. First, they’ll talk about the deficit and say we just can’t afford entitlement programs. Well, that’s obviously a joke, so move on. Then they’ll say that it gives the government tyrannical power. Okay. Let me know when the Danes open a Guantánamo Bay in Greenland.

Here’s the real reason libertarians hate the idea. The welfare state is a check against servility towards the rich. A strong welfare state would give us the power to say Fuck You to our bosses—this is the power to say “I’m gonna work odd jobs for twenty hours a week while I work on my driftwood sculptures and play keyboards in my a chillwave band. And I’ll still be able to go to the doctor and make rent.”

Sounds like freedom to me.

Standing ovation!

Read more of Connor Kilpatrick’s “It’s Hip! It’s Cool! It’s Libertarianism!” at either The Exiled or at Naked Capitalism. Trust me it’s a fantastic, totally worthwhile read.

Predictably, the reddit thread about Kilpatrick’s article is fascinating, too!
 

 

 
Of course it’s hearsay, but there’s a Mitt Romney story on the Patriot Boy blog that is so ridiculous, weird and hilarious that it falls into the category of “you can’t possibly make this shit up.” It’s got to be the funniest Mitt Romney story I’ve heard, yet. Still, as insane as this story is, I have faith that Mitt will eventually top it…

This anecdote involves Thurston Howell III Mitt Romney’s tipping habits—or lack thereof—and it took place at a Seattle’s Best Coffee located in a Borders bookstore in the wealthy enclave of Provo Canyon, Utah. The story is told by Bryan Young, the editor of Big Shiny Robots and the brother of one of the employees who was there when it happened:

One day in 2010 the baristas were surprised to see Mitt Romney and his wife come to the counter.

Since they’re both Mormon, neither ordered a coffee drink. They each ordered a hot chocolate and took them… without tipping. It seemed odd for someone so wealthy not to tip, but no one thought of it as a big deal. Baristas usually make less than minimum wage and make their living on tips. I understand that it’s not worth Bill Gates’ time to pick up a hundred dollar bill, but Mr. Millionaire couldn’t dump his change in the tip jar?

The man was out of touch…

...only they didn’t know just how out of touch he was until later.

Romney spent some time in the coffee shop as his wife browsed through books before they were called to leave.

On their way out, Anne throws away her half-consumed hot chocolate, but Mitt approaches the counter. “I know you guys can’t sell this again, but I was wondering if one of you guys wanted the rest of my hot chocolate.”

“No thanks,” one of the other baristas told him, wondering if this was some sort of bizarre joke.

“I don’t want to waste it, there’s still plenty left, it’s still perfectly good…”

According to my brother, Romney seemed genuinely confused by their refusal. His hot chocolate was so good he didn’t want to waste it, but it wasn’t so good that it was worth tipping those who made it. “I think the important part of this story isn’t the tipping,” my brother explained. “It’s that he doesn’t understand that everyone else is throwing their unused drinks away because they understand that it’s against social norms. His germs are on it, but somehow, in his mind, his millionaire saliva is good enough that it shouldn’t bother a barista of the serving class.”

Via reddit/r/politics

 
“They just started shooting.”

“I had my baby with me. My baby! The dog scratched me and then grabbed me. They shot at me while I was holding a baby!”

Teargas? Pepper spray? Non-lethal weapons? K-9s?

And what kind of an asshole fires into a crowd of men, women and children? Worse still, what kind of asshole follows orders to fire into a crowd of men, women and children, in their own neighborhood?

This is the question Anaheim residents want answered.

From “The Not So Happiest Place on Earth”:

While one might want to think this was a normal police action, it gives a person pause when they understand what happened just a few days prior that is conveniently excluded from most news stories on the events just following the fatal shooting of Manuel Diaz. Local residents, angry at the brutality of the shooting, expressed their outrage at the police who quickly lost control of the situation when residents began throwing water bottles. The police response to a public outcry against police brutality was itself, inexplicably brutal. Imagine police, firing indiscriminately into a crowd of men, women and children, including infants. Imagine letting a K9 loose into the crowd. This was not an orderly dispersal of an unruly crowd. It’s not something you have to imagine because it was caught on tape.

According to witnesses, a five year old girl was shot in the eye with a less than lethal round. Another young girl came forward to say that she was shot in the leg. Take that in for a moment. Are these “rioters” or are these actually children? Ask yourself what kind of mentality it takes to follow an order to fire rounds into a crowd that includes children in large numbers; in their neighborhood. This just makes no sense but it happened.

I would be remiss if I didn’t express my personal and vehement outrage at the idea, much less the reality, of police opening fire into a crowd that included children much less letting a K9 loose whether it was an intentional order or not. I don’t much care if the K9 units involvement was unintentional as the police seem to have claimed or how quickly the K9 unit was restrained. You don’t use dogs on children. You don’t point guns at children.

Unless I’m mistaken, we as a society, haven’t tolerated the shooting of an unarmed man in the back, ever. Even in the 1800′s, the days of the wild west, it wasn’t legal for an officer of the law to shoot a man in the back. Those that did became outlaws themselves and often met their end at the gallows. Today, in the 21st Century, we give them paid administrative leave and far too often look the other way.

This video takes your breath away, doesn’t it? That one cop clearly is out to hurt someone. Apparently anyone!

They know who these officers are. They have to go. It has to happen now.
 

 
Rick Scott, the vile, freaky clown who is the governor of Florida has announced that his state will not take that DIRTY Medicaid money as mandated by the ACA to subsidize the purchase of health care by THE POORS.

As The Daily Beast’‘s Michael Tomasky reports, Scott’s announcement means that at least several hundred thousand—if not many more—of Florida’s poorest families and individuals (those who are up to 133% above the poverty line) will not receive subsidies to purchase health insurance which would be 93% covered by the Feds anyway:

Funny. I seem to remember a time when Scott was quite eager to take Medi-CARE money! That wasn’t his. You remember what I’m talking about.

So this is what social programs mean to Scott. As a private-sector businessman, something to steal from. As a public “servant,” something to play political games with. Floridians will die so that he can be first in the wingnut line.

I don’t know the precise number, but in a state that size, surely a couple million people/families who’ll be eligible for care under the new law in 2014—families of four earning up to $88,000 are eligible for the subsidies—will be denied the chance to buy coverage at subsidized rates because Scott has refused this money. From a policy perspective, this is the next battleground, the pressure point of resistance for the hard-shell ideologues. How many states will really sacrifice billions in federal dollars for the sake of ideology, and how many will do it before the election so they get a gold star from Rove?

Those interested in what we used to call facts may want to read through this nice primer from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which describes the Medicaid transfer from the feds to the states and explains how the federal government will actually be picking up 93 percent of the costs over the next nine years.

If you lived in Florida and you were having a hard time coping like a lot of people are these days—let’s say that maybe you have a handicapped child and have lost your job for the sake of this thought experiment—and you watched last week’s SCOTUS announcement and cried tears of joy that your kid would finally be able to get medical care without making the rest of your family homeless, and now you get THIS NEWS that a mutant shitstain on humanity like Rick Scott is going to deny your kid healthcare because he wants brownie points with the fucking Tea party, what would you think about doing to Rick Scott?

Ponder that for ten seconds. Don’t even give yourself the luxury of a full minute. What comes to mind that you would want to do to Rick Scott?

And if you, dear reader, are thinking what I am a thinking… have a look at the trailer for the powerful (and very underrated I feel) 2002 film, John Q.

Will life imitate art? In the case of Rick Scott, let’s hope it fucking does!
 

 
A small group of protesters weirdos calling themselves the “Bible Believers” confronted Muslims at the Deerborn, Michigan’s annual Arab International Festival last Friday, with a pig’s head on a stick…

Via Hatewatch:

In addition to the pig’s head – presumably intended to offend observant Muslims, who do not eat pork – Bible Believers reportedly carried signs calling Islam “a religion of blood and murder” and describing the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a “liar,” “false prophet,” “murderer” and “child molesting pervert.”

Deerborn, which has the nation’s highest concentration of Arab-Americans and whose population is one-third Muslim, has in recent years become a favorite destination for anti-Muslim activists seeking the spotlight. Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of American (SIOA) staged an ersatz “human rights conference” there in April, and Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones, who runs the anti-gay, anti-Muslim Dove World Outreach Center, visited last April to tell a few dozen supporters – and an estimated 600 counter-protestors – that Islam is “of the devil.”

But of course Pamela Geller would be there… And where there’s anti-Islamic bigotry—and TV cameras—there’s gotta be Yosemite Sam Pastor Terry Jones, the buffoonish Koran-burning jackass from Florida…

This year marked the Bible Believers’ second appearance at Dearborn’s Arab International Festival. In 2011, several counter-protesters were arrested for throwing water bottles, trash and shoes at the group while its members – bearing signs calling Islam a “religion of murder” and calling on Muslims to “repent” – stood in the festival’s free speech zone. No arrests were made this year, the Dearborn Patch reports, though two festival attendees were detained and cited for disorderly contact.

Bible Believers is headed by Ruben Israel Chavez, a self-described “street preacher” from Los Angeles who runs the website Official Street Preachers, on which he rails against “homo sex,” Mormons, “drunkards,” Mardi Gras, “Pot Smoking Devils,” Billy Graham, and Oprah Winfrey, among others.

 
Want to like Mitt Romney even less than you already do? Read on:

Well, it looks like the rich white guy who strapped a shit-scared dog onto the roof of his car and who brags about how he likes to “fire people” has always been that way.

This may have happened when future ruler of men Mitt Romney was just a kid, true, but it’s still really fucking disturbing. If the child is the father to the man, after you read this, ask yourself how many degrees away from being a “Dexter” this Mormon Little Lord Fauntleroy was!

And if you think that’s taking it too far, at the very least, Mitt Romney is a grown-up version of the nastiest, most obnoxious snobby rich kid characters that James Spader played in the 1980s (The millionaire Republican governor’s son who bullies Duckie. Tell me that young Mittens is not straight out of a John Hughes film).

Now he wants to be the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth!

Five eye witnesses, four of them on record here. This isn’t a hit job, it’s Mitt Romney’s actual biography. Looking at how Romney’s predatory Bain Capital made its money by sucking prosperous businesses dry, firing workers and selling off the assets, I don’ think this over-privileged fuck has changed all that much.

Be prepared to fucking barf.

Via The Washington Post:

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”

“It was a hack job,” recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. “It was vicious.”

“He was just easy pickins,” said Friedemann, then the student prefect, or student authority leader of Stevens Hall, expressing remorse about his failure to stop it.

The incident transpired in a flash, and Friedemann said Romney then led his cheering schoolmates back to his bay-windowed room in Stevens Hall.

Friedemann, guilt ridden, made a point of not talking about it with his friend and waited to see what form of discipline would befall Romney at the famously strict institution. Nothing happened.

Romney is now the presumed Republican presidential nominee. His campaign spokeswoman said the former Massachusetts governor has no recollection of the incident.

I guess he’s got an Etch-A-Sketch memory, too!

Who the fuck forgets an incident like this?

Of course there’s also the matter of how the biggest homophobes often turn out to be repressed closet-cases themselves… Just sayin’.

Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, and Stephen Colbert are going to have a field day with this, to say nothing of Bill Maher. Cue the vicious SNL skits and Funny or Die videos about THIS INCIDENT and, I hope, one of those great Taiwanese computer animations, too.

This is just the first page of four. Read the rest at The Washington Post, if you can stomach more.
 

 

 
If you saw the video that made the rounds recently of the homophobic buffoon yelling stupid shit at Rosie O’Donnell as she left the Super Bowl, “James the Preacher,” as that fuckhead refers to himself, is back and trying to hitch his bigoted wagon to O’Donnell’s celebrity. Again. How desperate for attention can you get? Yelling abuse at someone on the street, videotaping it, posting it on YouTune and THEN a month later going back in for a second attempt at 15 milliseconds of “fame?? That is just fucking pathetic.

During the original encounter, O’Donnell naturally got the better of this witless goon, but now “James the Preacher” is doubling down on the dumb and has posted a YouTube video “apologizing” for not rebuking O’Donnell using “more aggressive words.”

I invite you to point and laugh at an idiot. Ladies and gentlemen, “James the Preacher,” a sad little loser who is a representative of a God who “doesn’t love everybody” and who (repeatedly) refers to his critics as “effeminate” as he spits all over his computer screen. Glory be to the Highest!:
 

 
Via Daily Kos

 
Here’s a transcript of the idiotic robocall that the Santorum campaign tried to ding Mitt Romney with in Ohio prior to Super Tuesday:

“Hi, my name is Brian Camenker; I’m a Jew from Massachusetts. And this is Darcy Brandon; I’m a Christian from California. If you believe as we do that marriage and sexuality should only be between a man and a woman, please help us stop Mitt Romney. As Governor, Romney signed “Gay Youth Pride Day” declarations, promoted homosexuality in our elementary schools, and unconstitutionally ordered state officals to make Massachusetts America’s first same-sex marriage state. Romney supports open homosexuality in the military, the appointment of homosexual judges, and the ENDA law, making it illegal to fire a man who wears a dress and high heels to work, even if he’s your kid’s teacher. When you vote tomorrow, please vote for social sanity and Rick Santorum, not for homosexuality and Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum is the only candidate who can be trusted to uphold traditional marriage, a straight military, and the rights of American children to have both a mother and a father. This message paid for by JewsandChristiansTogether.org and not authorized by any candidate. To get the facts before you vote, visit Jews and Christians Together.org.” (You can listen to it at Gawker)

If I got a robo-call like that, I’d be fucking furious—I never will, I live in Los Angeles—but it almost becomes amusing when you look into the background of Brian Camenker, a longtime anti-gay activist in Massachusetts, as Sarah Posner did on Religious Dispatches.

Here’s how the “Jews and Christians Together” press release described Camenker’s views on Mitt Romney:

Brian Camenker, president of Mass Resistance and compiler of much of that Romney research and one of the robo-call voices said, “Mitt Romney would be the most liberal Republican ever nominated for the Presidency. Romney is so far left, he spoke against the right of the Boy Scouts to screen-out homosexuals. Mitt Romney proved during the January 8 Meet the Press debate that he’s still as far left on the gay agenda as always. He proudly announced, ‘a member of my cabinet was gay. I appointed people to the bench regardless of their sexual orientation.’ Asked when he last stood up and spoke out for increasing gay rights, Romney said ‘Right now.’”

 

Shopped?

Here’s another tidbit about Fox News guest Camenker in 2007, via Know Thy Neighbor:

At yesterday’s hearing of Joint Committee on Education, Brian Camenker of MassResistance in support of Bill S321—Parental Notification—spent his three minutes of allotted time to speak in support of this bill by claiming that homosexuals were not among the 6 million Jews, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses and social outcasts killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust. Camenker went as far as to say that the whole “pink triangle” was made up in order to arrest Catholic priests.

And it gets worse, one of Camenker’s minions who testified twice agreed with Brian. In her testimony before the Joint Committee on Education, she said that it was the Nazis themselves who were the homosexuals and they gave pink triangles to and arrested only the “most flamboyant of their own people.”

Look, I think Mitt Romney absolutely sucks, but the idea that these appalling weirdos (and Rick Santorum) think they can get any traction with this kind of stuff is bloody preposterous, like Mr. Camenker himself, as seen in this hilarious Daily Show piece from 2008:
 

 
Hilarious article in The Brooklyn Paper about a new chocolaty cocktail named in honor of Republican knobhead Rick Santorum:

“People really like it even though it’s named after something gross — both the person and the Dan Savage meaning,” said John Rauschenberg, co-owner of Pacific Standard. “It’ll be an election fixture at least until primary season is over.”

The duo behind the beer hole near St. Mark’s Place often put out cocktails with suggestive names, such as the Corn Holed Fashioned or Mike Gallego’s Cup.

But the Santorum, a milky mixture of Baileys, orange vodka, bitters and chocolate flakes, seems to be sticking.

We won’t explain how the drink matches up with an alternate definition of the word “Santorum,” as The Brooklyn Paper is a family publication — but the bar’s liberal proprietors are certain it’ll satisfy any boozy desires.

The owners of the 4th Avenue bar expect that word of their “social lubricant” will reach the sweater-vest wearing Republican candidate. “I hope this drink makes Santorum want to throw up,” Rauschenberg told The Brookyn Paper’s Kate Briqelet.

Nicely, nicely!

Via Joe.My.God

 
The old adage, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” comes to mind when pondering a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which found that the rich and privileged are more prone to behave unethically—-to lie, cheat and even take candy from a child—and to be more selfish drivers than those who are less well off.

In one aspect of the multifaceted study, 129 undergraduates, both wealthy and poorer students, were given a jar of individually wrapped candy. They were told that the candy was meant for some children, but that they could help themselves if they wanted any. The more well-off undergraduates felt freer to take more candy than lower income participants, the study found. From ABC News:

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley analyzed a person’s rank in society (measured by wealth, occupational prestige and education) and found that those who were richer were more likely to cheat, lie and break the law than those who were poorer.

“We found that it is much more prevalent for people in the higher ranks of society to see greed and self-interest … as good pursuits,” said Paul Piff, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate at Berkeley. “This resonates with a lot of current events these days.”

In the first of two studies, researchers found that those who drove more expensive cars (an admittedly questionable indicator of economic worth) were more likely to cut off other cars and pedestrians at a busy San Francisco four-way intersection than those who drove older, less-expensive vehicles.
In other experiments,  wealthier study participants were more likely to admit they would behave unethically in a variety of situations and lie during negotiations. In another, researchers found wealthier people were more likely to cheat in an online game to win a $50 prize.

Greed is a “robust” determinant of unethical behavior, according to the study.

“This has some pretty clear implications,” said Piff. “Inequality is very much on Americans’ minds, and the potential effects of severe inequality on individual levels of behavior are major.”

Large sums of money may give people greater feelings of entitlement, causing those people to be the most averse to wealth distribution, Piff continued.  Poorer people may be less likely to cheat, because they are more dependent on their community at large, he said. In other words, they don’t want to rock the boat.

Interesting.  A right-winger would throw it back at you that poorer neighborhoods are where the majority of crimes are committed, but police are seldom brought in on matters of white collar crimes, are they? Stats compiling the actual damages of both types of crimes would be telling, but it seems clear enough already that the oligarchy in America would have a more out-sized influence than the car thief, pick-pocket or even a small army of welfare cheats.  Compare even a murderer to Bernie Maddof and that much still seems obvious.

“People in power who are more inclined to behave unethically in the service of gains and self-interest can have great effects on society as a whole,” said Piff.

And it’s difficult to say whether richer people get to the top because of their unethical behavior or whether wealth causes people to become this way. “It seems like a vicious cycle,” he said.

Spoken like a scientist. Here’s the take-away:

Piff said he hoped to further his research by figuring out ways to curb these patterns of behavior among wealthier individuals.

Oh shit! He said “it.”  The thing that you never, ever hear discussed, because it’s forbidden to question the motives and behaviors of the “job creators” in American society. The cat is out of the bag. We’ve got a diagnosis. Now what?

Personally, I can’t WAIT until this one bubbles up as a topic for Fox News talkers to become irate about. This could get really good (and funny) if this study and Paul Piff’s lightly blunt comments get some traction in the news cycle.  I’d love to know what Eric Bolling would make of this study, wouldn’t you? (Not because I can about what he thinks, just for the yucks).

“What it comes down to, really, is that money creates more of a self-focus, which may account for larger feelings of entitlement,” said Piff.  “We hope to further study how we can curb these patterns and how that will affect our social environment.”

 
Bob Larson, world-renowned “exorcist” and Christian radio/TV host (and flaming asshole), began his career in the 1960s denouncing demonic rock music and “leftists.” He later incorporated “Dungeons & Dragons” and demonic possession into his “act.”

Now Bob Larson is offering an online “demon test” for the low, low price of just $9.95. He’s even trademarked the name “Demon Test®”!

From his website (which I refuse to link to):

Taking the Demon Test® may be the most important spiritual decision you make. This Test is the result of more than 30 years of research and thousands of hours in personal ministry with troubled souls. Through this vast experience we have been able to design this test so that we may quickly determine an individual’s spiritual condition.

If you are concerned about your test score, we highly recommend that you schedule personal one-on-one time with Bob Larson. You may choose a one-hour Encounter Session or a full or half-day Intensive Session. These sessions are held during Bob’s on-the-road seminars (please click here to review Bob’s current schedule) or at our Center for Spiritual Freedom in Phoenix Arizona.

In one hour you can begin living the life you’ve always wanted. Let Bob Larson, the man who has dealt with more demons than anyone on the planet, show you how to overcome every obstacle of every day. Stop the cycles of failure, poverty and sickness. Break family curses at the ROOT! Discover why you are the way you are and immediately change destructive habits. If you have demons, you’ll be delivered. If you have issues, they’ll be uncovered. If you have infirmities, the healing will begin. No pastor, priest, or counselor has dwelt with more spiritually bound people sad seen them set free. This isn’t counseling. This isn’t therapy. This is intervention to get answers NOW! Your lifetime of suffering can end. Your torment can stop. The job you need, the relationships you desire will be within your reach. The choice is simple—stay stuck or move on to spiritual fulfillment and success in every area of life. Get free, stay free, and live free!

The first step on your journey to a new life begins with the Demon Test®. To contact us, please call 303-980-1511 or click here to send an email indicating your interest in a personal Session with Bob.

That was his idea to post his own phone number on the Internet, not mine. Christ can I imagine some fun things to prank call Bob Larson with. It used to happen all the time on his radio show. He’s practically inviting it here (If anyone does “engage him” like that, post it on YouTube and be sure to let us know).

In the clip below from the Showtime series La La Land, dodgy TV psychic “Shirley Ghostman” (played by Marc Wootton, who I rate a godlike comedic genius) visits Bob Larson at his home in Glendale, California. This clip is bust-a-gut funny until you realize that this guy makes well over a million dollars a year from gullible people with mental issues.
 

 
Via Joe.My.God/Turtle Box Bulletin

 
Hero of anti-immigrant, racist Republicans everywhere, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio was charged by the Justice Department with a rather long and utterly appalling list of civil rights violations.

Arpaio’s comically egotistical thirst for self-promotion (he briefly starred in a reality TV series) and flagrant disregard for civil rights have been well-known for a long time—it’s why the likes of Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry all wanted to fellate this crotchety old bastard for his endorsement—but now the media notoriety he’s sought after might prove to be Arpaio’s undoing. Associated Press writes:

The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency’s immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.

A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio’s immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops - almost all involving Latino drivers - that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad’s stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.

Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the U.S. legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.

During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city - in some cases, heavily Latino areas - over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio’s office.

Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff’s managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff’s posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver’s license for a fictional state called “Mexifornia.”

The report said that the sheriff’s office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 letter about a person’s dismay over employees of a McDonald’s in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn’t speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer “for the info,” said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of “for our operation.”
 
Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio’s jails. Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.

The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.

Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.

The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.

As Miranda Blue, writing on the People for the American Way blog, adds:

These allegations are disturbing enough in themselves. But what’s even more troubling is that the person behind them has been not only held up as a hero by the Right, but has served as an inspiration for immigration legislation around the country. In a report last year, we examined the ways the anti-immigrant Right has worked to dehumanize immigrants in order “to inflame anti-immigrant sentiment and build political opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.” It should come as no surprise that Sheriff Joe is the movement’s figurehead.

Nope, none at all!

At the Justice Department press conference today, Arpaio was accused of violating the Constitution and Federal laws.

Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division said the Arpaio investigation represents the most egregious case of racial profiling in the nation’s history, worse than anything he’s seen himself or reviewed in professional literature. Investigators interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed thousands of pages of documentation and toured Maricopa County jails as part of the probe.